This is an exciting and pivotal time in the HR profession. Now, more than ever, HR teams are required to assume a greater leadership role, contributing to the strategic direction of their organizations”.

Human Resource Management (HRM) is the function within an organization that focuses on the recruitment of, management of, and providing direction for the people who work in an organization. As you can imagine, all of the processes and programs that are touched by people are part of the HR kingdom.

The HRM department members provide the knowledge, necessary tools, training, administrative services, coaching, legal and management advice, and talent management oversight that the rest of the organization needs for successful operation.

Many HR departments are responsible for organization development that generates the culture of the organization. They are charged with oversight responsibilities to ensure that their organization appropriately builds teams and inspires employee empowerment.

Additional activities sponsored by HR management can include employee and community outreach. They are frequent mentors and members of employee teams that address philanthropic giving, employee engagement activities, and events that involve employee families.

Human Resource Management and Line Managers

HRM functions are also performed by line managers who are directly responsible for the engagement, contribution, and productivity of their reporting staff members. In a fully integrated talent management system, the managers play a significant role in and take ownership responsibility for the recruitment process. They are also responsible for the ongoing development of and retention of superior employees.

Organizations also perform HRM functions and tasks by outsourcing various components to outside suppliers and vendors. The tasks that are most frequently outsourced are those that take HR time and energy away from the HR activities that provide the most “strategic value to the company”.

This outsourcing most frequently involves payroll functions, but vendors and external consultants can help an organization with HRM in many ways.

Specifically, many HR departments outsource background checking, benefits administration, training such as sexual harassment training, temporary staffing, and the production of employee handbooks, policy manuals, and affirmative action plans.

HRM’s Changing Focus

HRM is the organizational function that deals with or provides leadership and advice for dealing with all issues related to the people in an organization. HRM, as such, deals with compensation, hiring, performance management, organization development, safety, wellness, benefits, employee motivation, communication, administration, and training.

HRM is also a strategic and comprehensive approach to managing people and the workplace culture and environment. Effective HRM enables employees to contribute effectively and productively to the overall company direction and the accomplishment of the organization’s goals and objectives.

HRM is moving away from traditional personnel, administration, and transactional roles, which are increasingly outsourced. The HRM function is now expected to add value to the strategic utilization of employees and to ensure that employee programs recommended and implemented impact the business in positive measurable ways.

The New Expectations of HR

Gone are the days when HR staff received direction from the executive team as to their priorities and needs. HR is now expected to sit at the executive table and recommend processes, approaches, and business solutions that improve the ability of the organization’s people to effectively contribute.

The new role of HRM involves strategic direction and HRM metrics and measurements to demonstrate their value. Employees who work in HRM must demonstrate their value by keeping their employer and company safe from lawsuits and the resulting workplace chaos. They must perform a balancing act to serve all of an organization’s stakeholders: customers, executives, owners, managers, employees, and stockholders.

It is difficult to underestimate the importance of an effective, modern HRM function within an organization.

An employee who retired from HRM twenty years ago would not recognize the competence and capability of the best HRM organizations today. You can choose to move your HRM function out of the dark days and into the light. Organizations that do—are best served.

COURSE BENEFITS

According to HR management expert John Bratton, “Human Resource Management is the process of linking the human resource function with the strategic objectives of the organization in order to improve performance.” Adopting an HR strategy that is concerned with the organization’s larger mission and goals has multiple advantages and benefits for the company.

Helps Evaluate HR Policies

The premise of strategic HRM is that the company’s policies and procedures related to employees should fit into the organization’s broader strategic plan. Developing these links between HR and strategy has the distinct advantage of helping the organization to evaluate its current HR policies and to replace outdated or inefficient policies with ones that promote a better workplace environment and employee relations. As the company evaluates its HR policies, it can use the strategic plan’s aims and objectives to evaluate each HR process. Those that fall out of the strategic vision can be reformulated or discarded in favor of better ones.

 Team-Building

Strategic HRM also helps to foster a sense of team spirit and camaraderie within the organization. A company’s strategic vision will ideally rely on input from a broad range of stakeholders including managers, employees, customers and investors. Creating an HR strategy that aligns with this sense of open communication can have the major benefit of helping stakeholders feel like their opinions are valued and meaningful to the company’s owners and executives.

Helps Monitor Progress

While the strategic vision of the company can influence the creation and evaluation of HR policies, the reverse can also be true. Human resources can help the organization monitor its progress toward achieving its stated goals and objectives in the strategic plan. Much of the strategic plan is likely to rely on the cooperation and support of employees and individual departments or functions within the organization.

HR has a key role to play in making sure that all of these components of the strategic plan are implemented in a timely and effective way. The advantage of this marriage between strategy and HR management is that the company’s executives and its HR function are consistently monitoring one another’s progress and tweaking processes for the benefit of the company and its employees.

 Keeps the Organization Legal

A final advantage of the human resource management strategy is in keeping the organization compliant with laws relating to employees, salary, insurance and the like. The laws and policies governing business are complex and can vary between jurisdictions, but HR has a key role to play in making sure that the organization’s strategic plan is not only presently legal but is also amendable enough that it can adapt to changing times and changing legal circumstances.

 Strategy

HR improves the company’s bottom line with its knowledge of how human capital affects organizational success. Leaders with expertise in HR strategic management participate in corporate decision-making that underlies current staffing assessments and projections for future workforce needs based on business demand.

Training and Development

HR training and development specialists coordinate new employee orientation, an essential step in forging a strong employer-employee relationship. The training and development area of HR also provides training that supports the company’s fair employment practices and employee development to prepare aspiring leaders for supervisory and management roles.

 Employee Satisfaction

Employee relations specialists in HR help the organization achieve high performance, morale and satisfaction levels throughout the workforce, by creating ways to strengthen the employer-employee relationship. They administer employee opinion surveys, conduct focus groups and seek employee input regarding job satisfaction and ways the employer can sustain good working relationships